Monday, April 19, 2010

"Have you noticed that communities have been replaced by commutes, and pedestrians by parking lots? A handful of activists, sick of living in a car culture, decide to mobilize against automobiles. Seniors on scooters in Seattle, clown cyclists in Toronto, kayak commuters in New York and Portugal unite! Demanding sidewalks, curbs, and car-free days, protesters plan parties and absurdist actions to persuade others to join the revolution. They amuse in an effort to raise awareness about mobility issues. Richard and Cleta create a DIY scooter lane, while Michael dresses up the Klownen Führer. A lack of access to safe walkways and bike lanes has trapped large portions of the population, but since when does not being a driver equate to not being a citizen? Streets may have become the domain of cars, but they were originally intended for people. The time has come to take them back." - Angie Driscoll

Sunday, April 11, 2010

We have had enough! To hell with the Mayor, who doesn't treat cyclists as full-fledged citizens. To hell with the City's and the city districts' administration who have been inactive in marking new biking lanes in the city. Initiative is in our hands now. The City hasn't been able to provide us with the working system of bike lanes in the past 20 years, so we are going to mark them ourselves. End to the ignorance of bike traffic, we want to travel safely in the city.

Who are we?

We are the people, who want to disburden the jammed roads and therefore we use mostly a bicycle to travel. We are not against the car traffic, but alone we don't find it sustainable - drivers see that everyday stuck in the traffic jams. We think bicycle is an ideal vehicle for a city - it's fast (door-to-door speed), amphibious (it can use roads and paths where roads are dangerous) and ecological.

What do we want?

We want bike lanes in the city that will serve for the safe bike traffic. The city bike lanes are not those recreational (e.g. embankment by the Danube river) - those serve for sports and to the tourists over the weekends, definitely not to day-to-day traffic to work or just to a café. Neither those amputated stumps leading from nowhere to nowhere (e.g. Trencianska street) are bike lanes - those are just the lame attempts of City administration to check off some activity.

What we do?

We show the City administration that marking the bike lanes is easy - a can of spray, a template and a little bit of common sense is enough (they haven't found it at Mayor's office in 20 years).